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Baseball: Darren Mancke, new-look Oswego make good impression in regional win over St. Charles North

Mancke drives in two early runs, Panthers hold off North Stars 6-4

"My entire life has been catching," Mancke said. "I've been a catcher since I grew up. I was shorter back then, they put me behind the dish. I don't look like the average catcher but I still love playing there and do it all the time." Mancke and the new-look Panthers made a good impression Monday. He drove in Oswego's first two runs, and the Panthers held off St. Charles North 6-4 in an Oswego Regional first-round game of the Phil Lawler summer state tournament. Oswego, in knocking off the spring Class 4A state runners-up from St. Charles, advanced to play at Rockford Boylan in Tuesday's regional quarterfinal. "Everybody knows that [St. Charles North] is a good team," Mancke said. "We came out here ready to play." (Gary E)

By Joshua Welge

"My entire life has been catching," Mancke said. "I've been a catcher since I grew up. I was shorter back then, they put me behind the dish. I don't look like the average catcher but I still love playing there and do it all the time." Mancke and the new-look Panthers made a good impression Monday. He drove in Oswego's first two runs, and the Panthers held off St. Charles North 6-4 in an Oswego Regional first-round game of the Phil Lawler summer state tournament. Oswego, in knocking off the spring Class 4A state runners-up from St. Charles, advanced to play at Rockford Boylan in Tuesday's regional quarterfinal. "Everybody knows that [St. Charles North] is a good team," Mancke said. "We came out here ready to play." (Gary E)

Mancke had a good view of a dramatic finish. With two out and a runner at second, St. Charles North's Nick DeMarco drilled a high drive to left off Oswego reliever Devin Hoffman. The potential game-tying homer was caught at the fence, 375 feet from home plate in the spacious dimensions at Oswego's home field. "I thought he was going to hit the wall; I was just hoping that it would stay in," Mancke said. "We definitely have a lot of space here. I tell people all the time we have a massive park. There are no cheap ones here, you have to get a hold of one." (Gary E)

St. Charles North indeed found out the hard way. Ryan Thiesse's potential game-tying homer died at the fence in straight center earlier in the seventh inning. In the fourth, Andrew Jimenez settled for a sacrifice fly on a ball caught at the fence in left. It was that kind of day for the North Stars, who committed four errors and hit two batters in digging a 6-1 hole. "They played a little cleaner than us, a little sharper than us, and a couple things didn't go our way," said North Stars assistant coach Brett Wikierak, coaching with head coach Todd Genke recovering from knee replacement surgery. "We hit a couple square there at the end, but that happens. Tip your cap to them, they outplayed us." (Gary E)

Mancke hit near the bottom of the order as a junior, but with some key pieces graduating he's cleaning up now. He cleaned up his first two at-bats. In the first, with Cal Hejza at second after a leadoff walk and stolen base, Mancke took a couple close pitches to work a full count. Then he smoked a run-scoring double over the left fielder. In the third inning, Mancke again watched a close pitch go by before bringing in Gavin Arseneau with a sacrifice fly. "I was just looking for a good pitch to hit," Mancke said. "That first at bat, he couldn't get a curve ball over for a strike, he hadn't to the first three guys, so I knew going into that at bat he wasn't going to throw me a good curveball. I was just sitting fastball and got one late in the count, and got a good pitch to hit." (Gary E)

Oswego did a lot of that kind of fundamental baseball well, tacking on two runs in the third inning and three more in the fourth. In that fourth inning, Arseneau greeted St. Charles North reliever Johnny Lambert with a perfect squeeze bunt to score Sam Gwodz to make it 4-1. Two more runs came in on a throwing error on a ground ball. Nathan Bradford had three hits and Brady Peterlin two, and Hejza walked twice and scored two runs. "Our lineup is a little different than years past, we're going to have to do some different things but fundamentally we're really sound," Oswego coach Joe Giarrante said. "We're going to do things right and put a lot of pressure on teams." Meanwhile, lanky junior lefty Jeff Behrends limited St. Charles North to three hits while pitching into the sixth inning. Both Behrends and Hoffman will be counted on next spring to be key parts of a young Oswego pitching staff. (Gary E)

"We have a young staff, but they throw strikes," Giarrante said. St. Charles North closed to 6-4 in the sixth on Alex Najera's double and three straight walks, but couldn't rally all the way back. The North Stars were playing their first game of the summer. They went to a new format with 12 days of camp, two hours a day, working on skills and situational baseball. "We thought it went really well. It's a little different transferring it to a game," Wikierak said. "We we had a lot of kids there to get better." (Gary E)